Bangladesh, Ethiopia, China Demand More Geoengineering Money

Scientists from countries including Bangladesh, Ethiopia and China have demanded more involvement with global climate change geoengineering initiatives, to be funded by cash from other countries.

Scientists suggest a giant sunshade in the sky could solve global warming

Scholars from developing countries call for greater say in solar geoengineering research, arguing poor nations have most at stake

It sounds like the stuff of science fiction: the creation, using balloons or jets, of a manmade atmospheric sunshade to shield the most vulnerable countries in the global south against the worst effects of global warming.

But amid mounting interest in “solar geoengineering” – not least among western universities – a group of scientists from developing countries has issued a forceful call to have a greater say in the direction of research into climate change, arguing that their countries are the ones with most at stake.

…

Now a dozen scholars, from countries including Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Ethiopia, India, Jamaica and Thailand, have joined the debate, arguing in the journal Nature that poor countries should take a lead in the field since they have most to gain or lose from the technology.

…

“The technique is controversial, and rightly so,” they add. “It is too early to know what its effects would be: it could be very helpful or very harmful. Developing countries have most to gain or lose. In our view, they must maintain their climate leadership and play a central part in research and discussions around solar geoengineering.”

The nations that are most vulnerable to climate change must drive discussions of modelling, ethics and governance, argue A. Atiq Rahman, Paulo Artaxo, Asfawossen Asrat, Andy Parker and 8 co-signatories.

A. Atiq Rahman,

Paulo Artaxo,

Asfawossen Asrat

Andy Parker

People in the global south are on the front line of climate change. As global temperatures creep upwards, the Intergovernmental Pane on Climate Change (IPCC) is forecasting rising seas eroding small island states, declining food production in many regions of Asia, water stress across Africa3 and major loss of biodiversity in South America.

Developing countries have spoken out on climate policy. Links between climate justice and development are now accepted, as is the idea that nations have common responsibilities — emitters are liable for impacts felt elsewhere. Despite having emitted very little greenhouse gas themselves, the world’s least-developed countries and small-island states demanded that the 2015 Paris climate agreement require warming to be kept “well below” 2 °C, and that a 1.5 °C limit should also be explored.

…

Developing countries must be in a position to make up their own minds. Local scientists, in collaboration with others, need to conduct research that is sensitive to regional concerns and conditions. For example, what effects might solar geoengineering have on hurricanes in the Caribbean, flooding in Bangladesh or agriculture in East Africa? Broader discussions among academics, policymakers, the public and public intellectuals are needed on climate risks and justice.

…

Further outreach and research in the developing world will require extra support from governments, universities and civil society worldwide. Research funders in advanced economies should fund collaborations with scientists in developing countries. We would like to see an IPCC special report on the risks and benefits of solar geoengineering. Ultimately, a coordinated global research initiative — perhaps under an organization such as the World Climate Research Programme — is needed to promote collaborative science on this controversial issue.

If anyone can control the climate, or the weather, than they have a WMD.
You can bet that every country will want control of it (if it’s possible).
The money really isn’t as important as the food it pays for.
Weather control threatens that.

“arguing in the journal Nature that poor countries should take a lead in the field since they have most to gain or lose from the technology”
Just because one has a need, it does not mean that they inherently know how to implement and carry out a solution for that need. One needs to find those who know the science, which is the only means that any real meed can be handled. Yeah, Bangladesh and Ethiopia are rank with geoengineering expertise, as they clearly have the earthly sciences in hand.

The lead is there for them to take. Nobody is stopping them from advancing their technology…except themselves. I think what they are really saying is that they want somebody else to advance their technology for them, or that they think that the brakes should be put on so they don’t get left behind…again.

I should have mentioned the real reason that Geoengineering gets airtime.
It looks like doing something without actually doing anything. That’s a lot cheaper than renewable energy, for instance, as it doesn’t have to be used.
Not yet. Maybe not ever
And research into the weather is always useful.
Rememebr my father’s article here 9 years ago.

I know cloud seeding has been used for years. The Rapid City, SD flood of June 1972 was thought to have been caused by it. But my concern is what effect it has on areas downstream from the seeding. If the dehumidified area is over an ocean, the effect on population is not a problem. But over a populated area, don’t they deserve rain also. Now what? Do we then seed for them also?

“the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research(?) Organization (CSIRO) was firing silver iodide into promising-looking clouds in order to produce rain”
Yes. It worked too. But the trouble was, it gave to some and took away from others, or so they thought. Basically, legal contests killed it.

Gee, I wondeer if cloud seeding caused some of the massive floods there in recent years. This year if it doesn’t stop snowing and dropping freezing rain in their major wheat area, they will be planting in June and praying for a delayed winter.

I love education, I really do. The three R’s are a magnificent thing.
But isn’t someone, somewhere thinking, WTF, have we gone too far?
It’s all very well educating people to be engineers and scientists, but educating them to believe in their own wacky dreams is going a bit far.
Realistic ambition is one thing, and it has served humanity well so far, but who instils these people to imagine that patently idiotic ideas are worth repeating.
I guess the saying, ‘better to be a fool and keep your mouth shut, than open it, and confirm your a fool’ should be foremost in every lecturers teaching.

anyone have any links to earlier discussions about geo-engineering to avert global cooling? I recall at the time there was a theoretical proposal to build a giant undersea wall do divert oceanic currents..
I’d love to locate the reference, the costs discussed were astronomical end would have seen half the world’s population scurrying about for a few lifetimes to construct such a thing

I claim that I do! Does anyone doubt that areas of the Earth that have white surfaces are hotter than those that don’t? See Arctic, Antartica, Greenland, as examples. Therefore, the answer to global warming is to ensure that as many surfaces of the Earth as possible appear white to viewers from outer space. Thus we should arm everyone between, say, latitudes 65 North and 6s South, with paint brushes, or similar implements, to daub the planet’s surfaces with white pigment! What could possibly go wrong?
Do I really need to use a /sarc tag?

No need for a sun shade in space – just re-aim all those mirrors at solar thermal plants to reflect sun light back to space. May need a few more. I’d do the necessary calculations if someone will give me a grant.

Well that would be great, but solar panels only work when the sun is shining. How do you propose to get rid of the sunlight at night? Yeah, didn’t think of that, did ya?
There is a solution, if you build a huge Li solar battery you could just use flood lights to bounce photons of the panel glass, and cool the Earth.
In fact, it gets better, you could greatly increase global cooling efficiency if you just point the floodlights directly at the sky and drain the battery.
Piece of cake.

@WXcycles
Great idea. I cannot wait the Sahara desert covered with sun bright LED, advertising “[insert any CAGW activist here] is fixing climate, in characters as big as Los Angeles.
Can I have a grant to make all the precise calculations needed?

My brethren did try to pull out of the deal a couple of years ago. I told them it was a daft idea, they didn’t listen (or at least nearly half of them) and it failed miserably.
Just as well really, as they would have been flat busted by now considering the oil price they hung their hats on.

Perhaps obligation is only a financial way of looking at it and if we are talking about the global warming scam you are right to reject it. But we do have interests in common as humanity.
Richer nations should help and provide a lead to get rid of diseases like polio, smallpox and malaria. This serves us all in the long run anyway as does getting rid of poverty worldwide and introducing technological advance of many different sorts. It is all the right thing to do.
But giving in to politicised and unscrupulous science which has greed and personal gain in it for practioners all in the service of global elitism is something to reject and call out for the vile thing that it is.

“get rid of diseases like polio”
usually mean “define polio to exclude most paralysis disease so we can pretend the vaccine works”.
There is evidence that the polio vaccine might cause polio-like disease in India.

So are the people who want to do this going to be responsible for the additional deaths due to cold and exposure up here in the North, or is that “just weather”? Lots of us are already climate refugees in the winter.

Is it naturally possible for any government of any kind of government to be a “good” government? I don’t think so. All governments cost more than they could possibly be worth.
I like this one from back a century or so, “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when they deserve it. — Mark Twain.

Global warming has received much attention, but evidence from the past shows that sudden global cooling has occurred with severe failures of agriculture. Extrapolating from dendrochronological evidence, one can predict the following: Approximately once per century there will be a drop of about 0.5–1 °C in mean temperature worldwide. In some of these cases, perhaps once every 200 or 300 years this might endanger agricultural production globally. About once per millenium there will be periods of 5–20 years where the temperature is seriously below normal. The last major one year temperature drop was 1816, the year without a summer, probably caused by the cooling effect of the eruption of the volcano Tambora, Indonesia. The last decade-long cooling event was a.d. 536–545 where dust veil, cold, famine, and plague was recorded in Byzantium and China. Very large volcanic eruptions or a comet/asteroid impact have been suggested as cause. Nuclear winter after large-scale nuclear war is a well-known scenario, but climate instabilities may also be caused by changes in the sun, Milankovitch cycles, changes in ocean currents, volcanoes, asteroid impacts, dusting from comets passing close, methane released from its hydrate, and pollution. The risks associated with sudden global cooling are rather smaller than the risks of global warming, but they are real. A dangerous sudden cooling event will happen sooner or later. Ability to change to cold-resistant crops rapidly in large parts of the world may be necessary to avoid major famines. With some important exceptions, fundamental research in abrupt climate change is in place, but agricultural or economic research on volcanic/comet-dusting/nuclear winters and their mitigation is lacking.

A question I have is, how can I know (more in the sense of the German “wissen”, rather than “kennen”) that the information and conclusions are true as specified? In addition, what right do I , or any country have, to tell another “gimme” ? Will these other countries tell me what climatological harm they had in their areas during the little ice age and the previous thousand years or so?

If you poke around these documents you find that the references are all 2010 or later. We have been through this before. It produced fossil windmill towers in the 1980s. They are now still shipping blades by truck north out of the port of Corpus Christi. Of course, they will say that these were just primitive minds back then. True. Mark Twain is reputed to have said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. Wonder what he’s thinking now? There were lots of other brilliant ideas around back then, like damming Long Island Sound for the local water supply. I suspect that would be easier than controlling their climate. Who educated these people? Or is it computer screen myslexia?

I have a great geoengineering project for these bozos. Build a whole bunch of really really giant fans. Place them in the desert southwest and in Florida where it is nice and warm right now. Plug them into the electrical grid, point them up up to us here in Wisconsin and turn them on. Full blast.
I will let them know when they can turn them off.

I may remember incorrectly but I do believe it was colder in the 40’s when I was trudging off to school. Minus 35, etc. North Western Wisc. Had to wear home-knit caps and chopper mittens. No Gore-tex then.

Oh things ARE happening. Like, plants don’t lose as much water to get CO2, so they grow more,
How horrible. But, has you said before, “easy fix”.
Just roundup forest and field so that a relevant fraction is barren.

I don’t recall seeing a whole lot of skeptics denying that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that it likely contributes SOME warming to the atmosphere. There may be some skeptics that do deny the GHGE effect. The issue is how sensitive the Earth’s climate is to the GHGE of CO2 and whether that sensitivity is a cause for concern. Is the climate’s response linear or logarithmic as CO2 rises? From what I’ve read, these are still very much questions that are open to debate.
Every time I see an alarmist misrepresenting the skeptics’ position on the AGW theory, I become more and more suspicious of his or her motivations. Might their motivation be outside of science and have nothing to do with the advancement of science? I wonder….
As much as anything else, my comment above was to intended to ridicule the very idea that humanity can and should geoengineer the Earth’s climate in response to the AGW theory. When there is so much about it that we still do not know, the notion of geoengineering the Earth’s climate almost borders on madness.

What happened to all that money that the liberals in America and the other “concerned” people around the world were going to give when Trump said no dice to giving any more money to those moochers. Wasn’t it the President of France that said the U S wasn’t needed in the Paris Accord and they would move on without us?

The world has now awoken to the new rules for research. First, hypthhesize a calamitous but unlikely scenario; next inflame the population using MSM who are always looking for the next big alarm; next, milk cow until dry; finally take credit when the low probility event doesn’t occur. Repeat. I thought the Zika scam was the developing countries’ share of the scampot for a while. That was just a small potato scam but it sounds like they think that minor milking qualfies them for the majors?

“Climate Justice.” I am meditating on this Zen koan, or oxymoron. “Climate” is a word describing long-term weather in regions of Earth. It is driven by who knows what natural factors and maybe a tiny bit by Man in who knows what ways. “Justice” is a human concept, driven by notions of fair play. I see no earthly connection.

Unfortunately, I’ve had too much to drink already. I can’t stand the stupidity of fools as expressed in this article. Just knowing that these countries want more free money… but then, that is what the liberal party in the US is about – free stuff. And even nations like China want free stuff from us.
Thank God Hillary lost. She would have given it to them. It’s not her money, after all.

I have probably had more to drink than you have. The reason for open boarders is to get more democrats (liberals) who want free stuff into the system. Once that happens, the conservatives will have no power. Sorry, but that’s what is happening here in the good old USA.

Ring a ding ding!
People, desperate of course, have realized that their free gravy train just ain’t going to biven gratis to the country.
Hoping that the West is so full of guilt that they’re clamoring have their meal tickets paid for allegedly “geoengineering” safe climate change.
Definition to be decided later.
Tell them:
A) We already gave all they’re going to get from USA; at least for years.
B) Perhaps Macron ot Trudeau might still be loopy enough to fund these crackpots who must not be welcomed at home anymore.
C) Maybe if they tried singing for their supper.

”No doubt everyone will look expectantly to the USA to fund this nonsense.”
I believe the current President of the United States would be disinclined to acquiesce to their request.
Or as he would likely tweet – ”No deal!!”

Water vapor has been increasing 1.5% per decade, 8% since 1960, but few recognize the significance of the increase (twice from any feedback) on climate because some logic-challenged EPA denizen failed to realize that the effect of duration of a ghg in the atmosphere cancels out. Shrewd countries are attempting to exploit the EPA mistake.

Geoengineering to combat climate change/global warming..
But if an honest analysis of the measured temperatures is used Global warming is lost in the noise of the systemic error.
So an honest person might have to ask; “What warming?”
So many solutions for an unmeasured problem.

So the world’s survival depends on sending massive amounts of money to Bangladesh, Ethiopia and China in order that they design something to keep the Earth from over heating. It is hard to believe that anyone could make such a proposal with a straight face.

Solet me get this right: build a sunshade in space and cut off solar radiation? what would this do to production of solar energy? what would it do to surface temperatures? would it be enough to trigger a new ice age – even a “little” one – and make all the greenies happy as we shiver in the dark and all the old folks die? We could get there by the space elevator – oh wait!
Let’s do it. What could possibly go wrong? I’m going to invest in Isosorbide Mononitrate futures – can’t miss!

Maybe I did the math wrong, but I think that a very thin reflective film of plastic that is 0.05 mm thick and 0.8 g/cc density and covers 2% of the half circle of the earth would weigh about 100 million tons. At US$22,000/kg, the launch cost would be about US$2 quadrillion. If world GDP is currently around US$84 trillion and every country devotes 20% of GDP to this project for 120 years, then it seems totally feasible to me. Of course if we need more than 2% coverage, it might start to get a little expensive. 🙂
Since this is so obviously in the realm of practicality, we should at least set up a few supranational government organizations and have 20,000 or so bureaucrats employed for a few decades to figure out that this is physically impossible.

Need moar shade but can’t afford the lift ticket? Then use something that’s already in place.
Just pull the Moon into a closer orbit.
And then increase the period from 27 to 54 days.
That oughta do it.
.

“Links between climate justice and development are now accepted, as is the idea that nations have common responsibilities — emitters are liable for impacts felt elsewhere.” The Paris accord was built on the premise that it would result in wealth transfers from the U.S., and to a lesser extent Europe, to “developing” nations. This is called politics, not science.

from the article:
“Scientists suggest a giant sunshade in the sky could solve global warming”
Really?
At what point do these raving lunatics form circles and start baying at the moon? They already do? Oh!

I have decided that for the small monetary inducement of only $1,000 per week, I pledge to limit my personal CO2 footprint to exhaling only 50% of the time.
My pledge would be just as effective at preventing climate change as any proposal put forth by climate alarmists, would cost taxpayers far less, and is just as likely to be believed to be a good idea by gullible ecoloon snowflakes. Soon they will all be pledging to exhale only 50% of the time, and demanding that everyone do the same, for the benefit of future generations.
SR

Is that a teeny weeny variation on pane as in “PITA” by any chance?
PS The only geo-engineereing we should and must be doing is digging out the contents of old volcanoes, grinding the stuff up and spreading it around.
Anywhere and everywhere.
Giving folks money to spend on tat, computers & fake money, fake everything (good intentions) is only hastening our voyage to the 2nd Planet Mars. We won’t need no rocket to get there either.
(Sorry Elon. Nice try tho)

We really seem to be heading for a Dr Strangelove moment, where one of these geo-engineering numb nuts launches something that none of us have signed up for, to fix a non existent “problem”.
Hopefully their solution will have the same level of impact as CO2 does on the climate, not much.

It’s time for France to step and pay for it all in the spirit of the Paris Fraud. Or just wait a few years for a soft lib U.S. occupant of the White House to wave the executive arm and spin gold across all the land.

Yeah well, meanwhile back in the real world, sensible people are more concerned with possible cooling
The insanity of fighting something that is both beneficial when it occurs, and imaginary, which is now the case is epic foolhardiness, on steroids.

Simpsons Already Did It
“Simpsons Already Did It” is the seventh episode of the sixth season of the American animated television series South Park, and the 86th episode of the series overall. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on June 26, 2002.[1] In the episode, which continues on from the events of the previous episode “Professor Chaos”, Butters thinks up a series of schemes to take over the world, but realizes that each one has already been performed on The Simpsons.

We don’t need a sun shade in space to limit solar insolation…we need a bloody magnifying glass to collect and send more solar irradiance to the good Earth. For hundreds of million years, the Earth has been steadily cooling as the crust thickens, with a cooling trend line the last 500 million years irregardless of CO2 levels. Even in our own short interglacial Holocene the last 11,700 years, we have had successive cooling with every warm period, or less warm and less lengthy periods since the Holocene Optimum, through the Minoan, Roman, Medieval to the present short warming we have been in the last 40 years. The LIA was a false start to another ice age beginning, but we will inevitably be arriving back at the norm at some point in the next several thousand years, or sooner, which is a full blown ice age.

Another demand by rich people in poor countries for money to be taken from poor people in rich countries to be pocketed by the corrupt involved. Ethiopia should be more worried about not upsetting those downstream from the largest dam being built right now in Africa which, even not fully complete, can control water flow down the Nile.

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